Page 9 of The Bloodstone Oath

He managed a rueful smile. “Because the prince who burned your fields has grown very tired of ashes.” Saying it loosened something inside his chest. The truth, small as it was, felt like the first step in a bridge they both knew they had to cross.

Selara’s lips parted, perhaps to answer, but Veyla’s voice summoned them back to the council circle. She turned, but not before Kaelor caught the faint curve of a real, yet uncertain smile.

As they parted, Kaelor’s concern for the Bloodstone deepened. The artifact flared at a simple touch.It responded to humans. Could it also, perhaps, influence its bearer?Yet the flicker of genuine connection slipping beneath his fear felt like a cooling draft through the doors of an iron forge. He could not decide which sensation was stronger, or more dangerous.

Chapter 5 - Selara

Tidehaven, the uneasy seam where Rootborn forest gave way to Fireforged ash-plain, felt more charged than any battlefield Selara had ever imagined. She sat in silence after speaking with Kaelor, her heart and mind a mixture of confusion. Talia and Thorne sat at a distance, giving her space to worship Lyra. They did not realize she was simply trying to unjumble herself.What was the spark she had felt with him? It was stronger than anything she had ever known. Was it a trick of the Bloodstone? Or was there something real and unexpected between them?

When Veyla summoned her back to the gathering, though, all thoughts of her attraction to this unfamiliar Fae Prince were replaced with concern. As she stepped onto the pavilion’s damp wood the air prickled: the Fireforged line was seething.

At their center was Prince Kaelor, with his chiseled jaw and long reddish-brown hair, which shimmered in flames as he spoke fiercely with the Flameforged general and three smolder-eyed nobles. Selara’s Fae hearing caught snatches of the quarrel:

“...last seen riding west with a Sea Fae sell sail…”

“...my sister, and you let her vanish the day we pledge peace?”

“...Rootborn trick, no doubt. They’ve secret paths through these swamps…”

His sister had disappeared, Selara realized, pulse leaping.

Kaelor spotted her, his boots pounding out an angry rhythm as he strode across the pavilion floor, guards scrambling to keep pace.

“Blood Priestess,” he bit out, all trace of their earlier intimacy gone, his voice rough. “Before a single vow is spoken, tell me straight: did your people aid my sister in her flight from our lands?”

Shock flashed through Selara. “I have no knowledge of your sister’s plans,” she answered, forcing steel into her tone. “If she fled, perhaps she sought freedom from the forge.”

The barb landed; Kaelor’s jaw tightened. But beneath the anger lay raw fear, and she saw it; saw, too, the ember-warm eyes she had pretended to ignore since he had arrived. Heat pulsed low in her throat, half indignation, half something far more treacherous.

Thorne stepped forward, hand on hilt. “Prince, accuse the Rootborn again and you’ll answer to me.”

Kaelor’s gaze flicked to the warrior, then back to Selara as though the others had vanished. “If I learn she was aided by your people,” he said softly, “root will answer to flame.”

“And if you learn she left of her own will?” Selara shot back, stepping closer until the brazier-light painted her cheekbones gold. “Will you still demand root-blood as payment for her freedom?”

For one breath they stood dangerously close, close enough for Selara to feel the furnace-heat of his body, close enough for Kaelor to see the pulse in her throat. The pavilion torches guttered; a hush fell, thick with the scent of ash and bloom.

Veyla’s commanding voice broke the spell. “Enough. The betrothal proceeds. Now. A missing sister will not stop thistreaty. In fact,” she added, “our seers can perhaps help you locate her. Once the treaty is signed.”

Veyla motioned towards the sky as day and night clasped hands. To the west, Lyra’s last sunlight spilled across the harbor in molten gold, gilding sailcloth and salt-sprayed dock posts; every Rootborn devotee bowed toward the sinking orb as though catching the warmth of her grace. At the same instant the Fireforged moon, Ignis, heaved above the eastern breakers, its raw crimson disk staining rigging and rooftops the color of fresh-drawn blood. The mingled glare painted the tide in braided ribbons of amber and scarlet, casting long twin shadows along the quay: one warm and honeyed, the other dark and war-steel red. Sea gulls circled in uneasy spirals, and even the wind seemed to hold its breath, as if the very world tested whether sun-born hope and moon-forged fury could share the same narrow sliver of twilight without shattering.

Kaelor backed away, the muscles in his neck corded, but his eyes never left Selara’s. Whatever flamed between them; anger, worry, or that humming pull she tried to deny, refused to balk.

Elder Ligren summoned the circle. Selara laid her hand on the cold stone altar; Kaelor’s hand settled beside it, fingers scarred from years of steel. The nearness jolted her heart. The Bloodstone throbbed in answer, as though tasting Fireforged heat and asking for more.

“This betrothal is binding,” Elder Ligren stated loudly for the congregation to hear. “There will be no rescinding of these vows once they are spoken. You are agreeing under the Night of the Twin Fires, under both the Rootborn’s and the Flameforged’s deities, to commit to a lifelong marriage and bring peace to our lands. Do you both take this vow?”

“I do,” Selara stated clearly, her voice level only by force of will. Veyla would not see weakness or hesitation in this moment.

Kaelor paused before giving his own vow, Selara felt the tremor in that heartbeat-long silence, and her stomach tightened with a sympathy that startled her. Finally, he ground the words out, “Yes. I do.”

Selara placed Rootborn soil into the binding bowl as Kaelor dropped molten rock on to it from his own bare hand. The soil hissed as the fire danced across its top layer. The rite should have continued, but a crossbow bolt cut the air, humming toward Kaelor’s spine.

Selara moved without thought. Vines of pure light snapped from her palms, forming a living shield; the bolt struck and clattered harmlessly. Gasps, shouts, iron scraping from sheaths. In the chaos Selara felt Kaelor’s hand seize her elbow, steadying her.

“You saved me,” he breathed, shock and something hotter flickering in his eyes.

Her pulse sprinted. “We have enemies enough without letting them win.”

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